NASA Taking Google's Project Tango Into Space

We only just got our first glimpse of Google's Project Tango 3D mapping smartphone, but its Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) group is already taking the device to space.

For almost a year, ATAP has been working with a team at the NASA Ames Research Center to integrate a Tango prototype into robots that work inside the International Space Station.

Dubbed SPHERES, these zero-gravity autonomous machines are being developed to serve as robotic assistants to help astronauts and independently perform tasks on the ISS.

According to Google ATAP, Project Tango-enabled SPHERES could reconstruct a 3D map of the station, and, "for the first time in history, enable autonomous navigation of a floating robotic platform 230 miles above the surface of the Earth," the team said in a Google+ post.

But first, a zero gravity prototype test. "Simulation doesn't work. We've got to fly it," ATAP program manager Ryan Hickman said. "What this zero g flight is gonna let us do is test all of the systems as they would operate in space."

Project Tango and SPHERES are scheduled to launch into orbit this summer.

"The development that we're doing is just getting started. And this is the first device that we've built," said Joel Hesch, an ATAP software engineer. "If you can do sensor fusion and perception on a mobile phone, you can enable so many use cases that can be used on other devices like SPHERES, that benefit the lives of people, that can really impact in a way that wasn't possible before."

Check out the video below to watch Project Tango and NASA Ames teams operate the prototype on the G-Force One 727 at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Texas.

Google unveiled Project Tango in February, showcasing a prototype phone loaded with sensors and software designed to track the full 3D motion of the device while mapping its environment.

Still miles away from everyday consumer use, iFixit described the smartphone as "basically a camera and sensor array that happens to run on an Android phone." But iFixit's teardown report earned the Tango an almost perfect repairability score.

Google, meanwhile, is no stranger to robots. It bought Boston Dynamics late last year, but has been building up its robot arsenal with more than a half dozen acquisitions. Check them out in the slideshow above.

Stephanie began as a PCMag reporter in May 2012. She moved to New York City from Frederick, Md., where she worked for four years as a multimedia reporter at the second-largest daily newspaper in Maryland. She interned at Baltimore magazine and graduated from Indiana University of Pennsylvania (in the town of Indiana, in the state of Pennsylvania) with a degree in journalism and mass communications.
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